Why is the aspie stereotype ugly?

Post Reply New Topic

I don't know. I haven't met enough aspies to know for sure if they are generally ugly enough for a stereotype. I'm not bad looking but I have no fashion sense. I think our body language can be off putting. For some reason people like smiling. I don't know how to smile. If something makes me happy I won't necessarily smile, this confuses people.

Looking back at people I have known in the past, I can think of several who I'm sure must have been AS. Every one of them was a reasonably good-looking person. None of them were goofy looking, or ugly. My son has AS, and he's quite good-looking. He's got big, bright eyes with long lashes, nice straight teeth, and a gorgeous smile (and yes, he smiles...appropriately.) The other boys in his social skills group, who I assume are AS, are pretty good-looking, with pleasant features.

The non-verbal autie teenage boy who lives nearby has become pretty good-looking as well, although he could do with a bit of orthodontia. I can't imagine that happening, though.

If there is a stereotype about AS people being ugly (and I'm not sure there really is) it's not based on reality. I think people are just mean, and will portray others in a bad light in an attempt to make themselves look cool in comparison.

It's because they have no imagination.

Most Aspies I met don't have any fashion sense. Most NTs don't, either.
I'm VERY interested in fashion and design, so that stereotype about lacking fashion sense is obviously not a necessity. Aspies and other people on the spectrum are more likely to pick comfortable over fashionable because of sensory issues, but AS and autism usually don't affect the sense of esthetics, and that's basically what fashion sense is.
About people on the spectrum being uglier than others: um, no? Definitely not.

people always get stereotyped; and when their type isn't really that well known or understood, it's usually negatively beyond words. Consider all the racial stereotypes that wound up in old Looney Tunes cartoons; what, they were positive? I don't think so.

That's human nature; welcome to it.

Let 'em stereotype; in many cases, it's actually pretty funny. I'm so hyper that whenever my friends show me a character in something that's hyperactive, I laugh my @$$ off, including that one character in Hoodwinked, and Foamy the Squirrel's hyperactive cousin.

There is the stereotype of the beautiful autistic child.

What you mean is "style" - and here NTs and Aspies are likely the same.

The difference is IMHO more in the area in picking up the clothing manner in a specific group.

First of all, the stereotype I hear most often with Asperger's is the highly intelligent (but possibly socially awkward) type with an encyclopaedic knowledge of a subject. Someone with some savant skill, which is really more associated with Kanner-type autism and isn't even really typical of AS. The stereotype I encounter most often isn't anything to do with appearance.

Second of all, whatever groups society projects a sense of inferiority on, I have never heard Aspies as such a group. Society's punching bag is NOT Aspies, it's some sort of criminal group such as paedophiles. Or a perceived socio-economic group such as what we call in Scotland "neds", or people in England call "chavs", or people in America might call "trailer trash".

The chavs rule the school where I live. They are certainly NOT society's punching bag. That's me.

I can agree on that, but in my case my inability to wear the same jeans and sweaters as other kids in school instead led to me developing a more refined style which looks good in the eyes of many NT's as well. I always knew intuitively what proportions were right for me and what materials I liked, so instead of wearing gym trousers or jeans and a hoodie I could show up in school wearing nicely cut cashmere flannel trousers and a crisp, french cuffed white shirt. Even at age 10-11 I fixed my hair for 20 minutes every morning and this always felt like a perfectly natural part of my asperger personality, just like my hygiene which is above that of average neurotypicals. I always felt like I lost my identity and became nothing and no one when trying to dress like the majority.

Yes, we're a punching bag, but not because we're seen as part of a group, or because people know we're such a thing as Asperger's.

i guess cause people dont know much about aspies i say to people "well im sorry about that it may be a trait of my aspergous" and the usual awnser i get is
"whats that?"
people have absolutly no idea about it except what they see on tv or movies. the other awnser i get is
"you look normal... no offense"
it really shows how little the community at large and people in general know.

the person in the video both looks and sounds like a person with down's syndrome (mongoloid). he looks mild and can act reasonably, but he definitely strikes me as down's syndrome.
down's syndrome people have external physical traits which characterize their condition.
like they are usually short and mesomorphic, and they usually have a large tongue, and their eyes are usually small and their faces have a remarkable similarity.
they all look very closely related.

but autism has no genetic effect on physical appearance. there are some attractive autistics and some neutral looking ones and some unattractive ones in the same ratio as in an NT population.

there can be some environmental and situational factors that influence some autistic people's appearances i believe.

like if someone is profoundly autistic, then they will have been so all their lives. that means they have never provided proper muscular resistance to facial bone growth. they have no capacity for meaningful expression, and most of the time, their facial muscles are completely limp. this means that when they are a baby and their head and face is growing, the muscles that higher functioning people would use to pull a "default" expression (and thereby exert resistance to certain directions of bone growth) are not used. this may lead to elongations in the jaw (and other areas) that are not restricted by normal facial "tension" in a profound autistic.

on the other side of the spectrum, some asperger people can have such a pleasant feeling in them, and their default expression is nearly blank, but more inquisitive. by "blank", i do not mean "atrophied" as in profound autism, i mean "a normal attentive default".
so the default expression of some asperger people may lead to their faces being very attractive (due to moulding in the plastic years of early childhood).
they are some "environmental" factors i can think of. they are "environmental" because they are caused by an action that occurs after genetic inception.

a situational factor i can think of is that the expressions on some asperger people's faces are unprofessionally contrived if they wish to fake being part of a group.
this makes their smile look weird if they try to pull an ebullient "yeah right on dude!!" act to an NT group of people (that is if it IS an act).

i do not know, but the video seems to be an example of high school teen mentality movies which are usually designed to highlight how lucky and beautiful they are in a world where there are less valuable people all around them.
they like to include stereotypes of these "lesser" people in their movies as a "contrast" to emphasize their (the young unshaven NT's) "coolness".

a few may try to use "asperger syndrome" as a contrast to highlight their "with-it'ness", but they will not stand the test of time in the minds of their fans.

i am glad that the "fashion conscious" world has a habit of coagulating into "clumps". these "clumps" are those that identify with vanity and self aggrandizement, and they are unfairly biased in self comparison with people they do not see as how they want to be.

but there are people who do not have this clotting factor, and they remain swirling like me in the outer currents in a clear space, and occasionally i "connect" with them, but i can not hold on. but the "clump" all swirls tightly and chaotically around itself. what clots.

whatever. i am trending away from relevance so that is all i have to say.

Last edited by b9 on 04 May 2009, 9:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

I haven't heard of the ugly stereotype, but it probably goes like this

aspie-nerd, nerd-ugly/no fashion sense, so aspie-ugly/no fashion sense.

Like all stereoypes, they don't apply to many, and I know an aspie who's absolutely gorgeous lol.

To me it's very superficial and narrow minded to assume all of a population are going to be attractive or ugly and then expect everyone to conform to that stereotype. It is so not true. For one thing, sometimes people who are stereotyped as being ugly because of a genetic condition end up being really attractive because they do cool things with their hair, makeup and clothes that make them more attractive.
I went to a movie once and saw someone who most might consider "ugly" because of her genetic condition and most would not bother giving someone like her the option of looking good. They would rationalize and say "well she's hopeless so why waste time on her when there's me and I can be aware of it blah blah blah".
However, this person was with parents and they must have done an excellent job at giving her a sense of self esteem because she looked fabulous. She was well groomed, clean, had makeup, a hip hair style and the coolest clothing. I am sure it makes life easier whomever you are to at least work on the stuff you have control over...stuff like hygeine, clothing, hair, makeup.
When I saw that chick I thought she must have the coolest parents. They are aware of what others will think based on superficial observations and they try to offset some of the negative reactions by using fashion to encourage approachability and keep her from being the obvious object of ridicule. In other words, here appearance didn't scream "hey, I'm different and inferior to you. Please treat me with contempt!"

I must admit I have not heard of the ugly-aspie stereotype either. As said in posts above, aspies look pretty much like NT's and vice versa. There is no physical trait that makes us stand out. I have not always been fashionable, in fact i was teased at school about my dress sense, but these days I have learnt to dress better and follow fashion to a certain extent, when I like what I see. If you passed me in the street now I doubt you would pick me out as being an aspie at all based on looks alone.

Sterotypes only exist if we persist on trying to find them